


It's a Lovely Day in the Castle, and You are a Horrible Swan

by Onmyliteraturebullshitagain



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: Being an Improper Princess, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Parody, Fairy Tale Retellings, Funny, Horrible Goose (Untitled Goose Game), Humor, Inspired By Tumblr, Lets Play with Fairy Tales, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:33:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25017817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onmyliteraturebullshitagain/pseuds/Onmyliteraturebullshitagain
Summary: It's a conventional story. The evil stepmother wants the throne. She's already got the king enchanted, so now she just has to get rid of the princess. So just transform her into a swan and leave her to drift around a lake until she can be rescued by true love.The only issue is that this princess isn't conventional. And swans can wreak havoc when they want to.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 63





	It's a Lovely Day in the Castle, and You are a Horrible Swan

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a tumblr post that I now can't find but that played with the idea of princesses not just being docile after being transformed, and by my own enjoyment of Untitled Goose Game, where you get to just be an obnoxious bird with no consequences.
> 
> Title taken from the tagline of Untitled Goose Game: "It's a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible goose."

It should have been easy, a simple spell and an easy way to get rid of a pesky stepdaughter. Eris had worked far too hard to get where she was--poisoning the queen, enchanting the king, convincing him to marry her, taking on the role of queen--to be stopped by one irritating princess. Sure, the girl was clever and loudmouthed and beloved by the people for some strange reason, but she was just a girl at the end of the day. Hardly more than a child. Nothing compared to a powerful witch like Eris. With one more good spell, Suna would be dispatched and the kingdom would be hers, at last. Everything she’d worked for, struggled for, fought for, finally within her grasp. Riches, power, control, accolades. She could already almost taste it as she prepared the ingredients for this final spell, could nearly hear the cheers of her name from the citizens.

Enough of their idiot king and his obnoxious daughter. Surely the kingdom was ready for a change, someone with real power on the throne.

She finished the potion, watching as it sizzled and turned black, a sure sign it had worked. Eris smiled. Everything was in place, every plan made, every concern addressed.

Except, she would only realize much, much later, a swan may have been a poor choice.

*

Suna woke up in a lake. That, by itself, was strange enough considering she’d gone to sleep in her bed in the palace, practically swaddled in layers of blankets, and she was now somehow floating on cold water that smelled like algae and lilypad flowers. She blinked her eyes, looked up at the blue sky over her head, and noticed next that her vision wasn’t quite the same, her neck not moving exactly the way it was meant to. She stretched her arms. Then she looked at them.

They weren’t arms. They were white feathered wings, and the body they were attached to was a bird’s. Getting just a little frantic now, she looked down into the rippling reflection of herself in the lake. 

No, she was definitely a swan. That was undoubtedly a bird staring back at her, looking surprised in a way Suna would have previously assumed wasn’t possible for something with a beak. Yet surprised she was. Surprised and a swan.

She made a noise that she’d meant as a shout but actually emerged as a honk, and then flapped her wings and flailed, splashing the water and sloshing the plants floating nearby and startling a frog into croaking at her and hopping into the water. It helped her mood a little to do something like thrash and scream, but it ultimately didn’t _actually_ help her at all, and she was nothing if not practical. She shook herself out, calmed herself down, and settled back on the lake.

Her feet under the water pushed through, sending her gliding forward, and she considered what was happening. There were a few options:

  1. This was a very strange dream and she’d eventually wake up back in her nest of blankets
  2. She’d managed to anger a fairy or spirit of some kind and gotten cursed to a swan
  3. She’d been transformed by an angry witch



Suna mulled over the options. The dream seemed unlikely, considering she’d done her shouting and flailing and hadn’t awoken. Managing to anger some powerful being seemed unlikely as well, considering that was something she was sure she’d remember doing and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even been around a fairy, let alone annoyed one enough to get cursed. So that left a witch’s transformation, and Suna had a burning feeling that she knew who it might have been.

Eris. Her new stepmother. Who else could it be?

She’d known Eris was sketchy from day one, quite honestly, and she hadn’t exactly been quiet about her disapproval. She couldn’t truly _prove_ that Eris had anything to do with her mother’s untimely death, but she could certainly prove that her father had changed personality as soon as that woman had come into the picture. Previously, he’d always been a smart and thoughtful man, until Eris had entered the picture. It had happened too quickly, his immediate interest in this raven-haired woman with the piercing eyes that never seemed to smile even when her lips did, his immediate desire to court her, then marry her, then make her his official queen. It had all been too quick, too unquestioned. But of course, who was there to question other than Suna? None of his council were going to argue directly with the king, and none of his subjects could have argued even if they’d wanted to. So no matter how loud and annoying Suna made herself--and she could be incredibly loud and annoying when she wanted to be--she hadn’t been able to do anything to stop Eris from being crowned.

And now Eris had clearly decided she was tired of listening to Suna’s arguing and shouting and questioning and general nuisance-making. Turning her into a swan did seem like a tradition choice for a witch. Something dramatic but indirect, difficult to trace directly back to Eris herself. Suna had seen enough of her friends in similar predicaments: Beauty and her too-long sleep, Snow and her poisoned apple, Adam and his monster transformation. They’d all gotten through it via some form of true love, but Suna had to admit that that seemed like a lot of waiting around and hoping for the best, which wasn’t exactly her strong suit. What, was she meant to just drift around this lake until some handsome prince stumbled upon it and decided to find her a cure so they could get married?

Fat chance.

Suna stretched out her wings, flapped them a bit madly, and managed to take flight. Now that was a fringe benefit she could get used to, even if everything else was already getting annoying. She lifted herself up into the sky, looking around her for something familiar. Eris couldn’t have taken her that far away from home without drawing suspicion, so Suna just had to find the castle and the grounds again. It took a bit of doing, adjusting to flying through clouds and ducking low enough to see without hitting the tallest trees and also figuring out how exactly to change directions without just falling completely out of the sky. But she made do and soon found herself sweeping over the grounds of the castle, the familiar gardens and hedges and pathways. As she circled, she noticed a bit of commotion near the front gates of the palace; there was a large crowd of people all looking up at someone who was addressing them from the raised landing of a wall above the main gate. 

As Suna swooped lower, she saw that it was Eris, all done up in her finest gown and the shiniest crown on her head. Suna drifted down until she could land on a separate balcony behind and above where Eris was giving her queenly speech. She could make out some of it, things about the tragedy of the kidnapped princess, how the country would survive with Eris’ strong leadership, how she would be a loving and benevolent ruler. It actually made Suna laugh, which just came out as a rather large and unattractive honk.

The honk rang off the wall, startling Eris enough to turn and look back at what infernal creature was distracting the people from her speech. There, perched on a balcony behind her, was a lovely white swan, glaring down at her. Her eyes widened, feeling a twitch of nerves. It couldn’t be Suna. She wouldn’t have come back. She couldn’t have already figured out that Eris had done this to her. It wasn’t what was done. Cursed princesses didn’t come back in their animal forms just to goad their transformers. No, no, it must just be a coincidence.

Eris turned back to the crowd and began to speak again, only to be broken off once more by a loud honk. She cleared her throat and tried again. Another honk. She raised her voice to call out over it. More honks, even louder, and this time punctuated by a lot of wing flapping. Eris raised her voice to a yell. The swan honked all the louder, pacing and flapping its wings on the balcony and scattering loose feathers.

There was noise coming from the crowd below, a kind of light tittering, little rumbles of sound.

Laughter. They were _laughing_ at her, their incredible queen.

Oh, if she could only openly use her magic, enchant them all in submission, into obedience. Yet she knew she couldn’t, would be dethroned the moment anyone knew. She could make do. She would be powerful and beloved without having to resort to magic. Realizing the swan was not going to stop its distracting noise, she gave a sharp gesture to show that the speech was finished. 

Fine, she would get her hands truly dirty. She’d eat roasted swan tonight.

*

Except that no one seemed able to catch the stupid swan, not even after three days of it being around the palace grounds. Although none of the guards and servants understood why, the swan seemed to know every inch of the palace and grounds, every place it could hide, every place it could duck out of sight, every place it could wait and terrifying its pursuers by exploding into a cacophony of honking. There was something about it, many of the servants especially noted, something far too smart to be an ordinary swan. It was something about the way it moved, the way it seemed to laugh at them, the way it strutted around the grounds and waggled its tail at the guards, and at Eris especially.

Very few of the servants liked Eris, the pompous and commanding woman that was suddenly ordering them around and constantly making comments about how their bows could be _lower_ and they ought to be addressing her as _Your Royal Excellency the Queen_ , which was both annoying and a mouthful. Most of them pretty quickly gave up on the swan-hunt once it became too much work and returned to their regular chores. And the swan seemed to return to its own work as well.

At first, it had stayed out in the gardens mostly, snipping down flower tops of the new dark purple roses that Eris had commanded be planted to commemorate her coronation. Soon, every rose stem was headless and the ground was littered with tattered up blossoms and petals, decisively shredded by one very persistent swan. Yet it never touched any of the other flowers--the princess’ weedy daisies, the king’s proud blue tulips, the late queen’s brilliant pink azalea--or any of the shrubbery or produce. Just those purple roses.

It also took to following the queen around whenever she was on the grounds, honking loudly every time she tried to talk, splashing at her from ponds and fountains, scratching up dirt on all the benches and walking paths. Of course, the queen shrieked and told the guards to dispatch of that awful swan, and they tried. They really did. They were good and dutiful men if nothing else, but the swan was faster and whilier than they could anticipate, and it wasn’t exactly like they could go trudging into ponds in their full armor. So they shot arrows at it sometimes, which it dodged, or threw rocks, or even just tried to wave their arms and chase it off the grounds. But it never got hit by anything, and it never went away for long.

After a full week, it got into the castle itself. 

The servants, by now, found the swan rather amusing. It never honked or hissed or kicked things at them, and was actually quite friendly and tame to them when they interacted. A few even said it reminded them somehow of the lost princess, that sort of loud sense of self, her humor and persistence. Most of them dismissed this as foolishness, but that didn’t stop any of them from leaving out little bowls of grains or tossing it scraps of bread or gently patting it on the head when it got near. The swan seemed to smile at them, and then set off into the palace after the queen.

Eris didn’t realize it had gotten into the castle at all until she woke up in the middle of the night to a swan under her bed. It had apparently been hiding long enough for her to fall into a deep sleep before waking her up with a wild round of honking and flapping and something like _shrieking_. She’d bolted awake, hollering for the guards, who burst in looking confused, only to see a swan emerge from under the bed and fly up into the air. The guards stood in shocked confusion as the queen, her hair a wild mess and eyes shadowed with exhaustion, screamed at them to do something. The swan, for its part, just landed on the top of her vanity and began knocking every one of her nice perfumes and creams and lip colors onto the floor, seeming to laugh as they all shattered in a cloud of scent. When one guard finally approached, jabbing at the swan with a spear, the swan hopped to the floor and actually dared to bite at his foot as it rushed headlong from the room and out into the hallway. As it did, it continued to honk and scream and make such a ruckus that there was no way anyone else on that floor of the castle could possibly still be sleeping.

Eris bellowed at the guards that she’d have every single one of their heads if that swan ever got into her room again and then slammed the door in their terrified faces.

She’d miscalculated. Somehow, she’d miscalculated.

Still, it was _one_ obnoxious bird, and she was still a powerful witch, even if she couldn’t show it openly. There had to be a solution to this.

In the meantime, the swan terrorized the castle. It pulled down drapes, chewed up official documents, spilled ink all over the floor, and stole things and hid them in improbable places. It started with all the quills in the study, which somehow ended up squirrelled all over the castle--tucked into vases, under rugs, in chamber pots, in Eris’ pillow. 

Then the swan progressed to stealing slippers and other odds and ends. It tossed Eris’ favorite necklace into one of the fountains on the grounds, dumped only her left slipper into a pile of leavings in the stables, and then placed her nicest gold comb onto a ledge just out of reach out Eris’ bedroom window. 

Then it began stealing keys and throwing them off balconies, or hiding them in the garden, or dropping them in the soup pots boiling in the kitchen. Suddenly, the council couldn’t get into the treasury or the meeting room, and the butler couldn’t get any of the good dishes out of their cabinet, and Eris couldn’t open her jewelry box or bureau or her secret safe. 

Eris screamed and railed and threatened, her hair a wild mess, her face lined and blotchy, her eyes almost feral in their rage. It had been three weeks of utter madness, and about half the guards had quit in fear for their heads, legislation had ground to a halt without anything to write with or any access to their chambers, and most of the citizens watched from a bewildered distance as the royal court went mad. The king, in his still enchanted daze, wasn’t entirely sure what was going on around him but tried to reassure his beloved wife that everything was fine. She screamed at him too.

The servants kept their heads down, smiled privately, and put out Eris’ good strawberries for the swan.

*

Suna really hadn’t had a goal when all of this had begun. Her whole idea had begun and ended with “I’m not going to just float around in a lake” and had somehow escalated to tormenting her stepmother. 

And, by god, was it satisfying.

She did miss having hands, which would have made some of her tricks and ploys easier, but she did like flying, and she did like that there was no sort of decorum to uphold now. Before, she’d argued with Eris and tried to persuade the council to listen to her and attempted to shake some sense into her dopey-eyed father, all while trying to remain appropriate for a woman of her station. As much as she would have liked to, she couldn’t have _actually_ thrown things at Eris or hidden her keys or just shrieked endlessly while she tried to talk.

Swans, though, had no such obligation for propriety. So throw and hide and shriek she did.

It helped that the servants liked her, swan or not, and helped make sure she was fed and hidden. She thought a few might have some idea the annoying swan was actually the princess, but even if that was true, there was no way for them to fix it. If nothing else, they certainly didn’t like the new queen. Suna had noticed that some had actually begun sabotaging her in their own little ways--spilling her dinner tray on the way to her room, breaking some of the nicer dishes, being “unable” to find her jewelry or trinkets--blaming the swan all the while. How dare the swan trip them on the way to the queen’s chamber! How dare the swan break those precious plates! How dare the swan hide those things the queen liked so much! Suna perched on a ledge outside the servant chambers and laughed and laughed.

Eris was starting to break, and Suna knew it. In fact, she’d made sure of it. She was pretty sure Eris hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in at least a month now, what with Suna making sure to be awake and noisy when Eris was trying to sleep. She hadn’t quite been able to get under her bed again, but she could definitely sit outside her window and honk at all hours, or shatter things in the hallway just outside her room, or harass the guards into shouting at her. She was also pretty sure Eris hadn’t been able to actually look or act fully regal since the day of the speech when Suna had disturbed it with her noise. She’d made sure it was much more difficult for her to get her hair into that black, flowy wave she wanted it to be, or to make-up her face to look younger and more beautiful, or to express the same detached power she tried to radiate. It was hard for anyone to take Eris seriously when for the last month, her most serious nemesis was not some rival king or court member but was, instead, one very irritating swan.

It helped too, Suna noted, that Eris couldn’t use her magic with other people around, forcing her to resort to traditional means to rid herself of the swan. All of which, unfortunately for Eris, had failed time and time again.

That was how a plan began to finally take form in Suna’s mind, a way to not just be an irritant but to truly rid the kingdom of Eris once and for all.

First, she would have to lay low for a while, lull Eris into a false sense of security. So, for five days, Suna stayed completely out of sight. No honking, no torn up paper, no snipped flowers, no stolen keys. The servants looked a bit sad to see the castle falling back into a quiet normalcy, which made Suna sad as well, but she reassured herself that it would be worth it. From hiding places around the palace, she watched Eris. As quickly as possible, Eris began to take back her power. She found ways to style her hair, float about in her gowns, command the servants in that same biting tone, bedeck herself in jewels again. The council managed to break into the treasury so they could actually get some legislature going again. The gardener tried to salvage the purple roses and coax them to bloom anew. The guards sighed and returned to their focus on human threats, rather than avian ones.

Suna watched, waiting for her opportunity.

On the sixth day, the queen called for a grand meeting of the royal family and the council and representatives from the major guilds in the city. A show of strength and power, a chance to move forward. Suna continued to watch, listening to the details, the orders Eris gave the servants and the guards, the messengers as they went out into the city. She chuckled to herself and snuck in the dead of night into the throne room, prepared to wait.

The collection of high-ranking individuals gathered without a hitch, arranging themselves around the throne room where the king and queen sat above them all, unaware of the swan hiding under the bottom of the tapestry hanging behind the thrones. Everyone went through the ritual motions of bowing and introducing themselves and wishing health and long life to the king and queen and all that rigamarole that had made even human Suna roll her eyes. Then, the queen stood to make another of her dramatic speeches. She stepped toward the middle of the room, between and in front of the thrones on the dais, looking down at the assembled crowd. She was looking more regal again, even if Suna felt sure there were more gray hairs in her head of dark locks now, and she spoke with the lofty confidence of someone sure they’d already won.

Suna slid out from behind the tapestry, moving carefully up toward the throne. One of the guards saw her, eyes going wide, and made a quick gesture toward the queen. She met his eyes and glared, eyes flashing like a dragon, and he fell silent again. Suna met his eyes, holding still, unsure if he might go after her now. Instead, the guard pretended to not see her at all and simply focused on the queen. It was no one’s business if he maybe smirked just a little as he caught sight of the swan continuing to sneak around from the corner of his eye.

The queen was caught up in it now, arms gesturing broadly, voice rising toward the high gilded ceiling. Suna slipped around the side of the queen’s throne and then angled herself for a good jump and just a bit of flapping. More people saw her now, some of the guild members who looked confused and muttered to each other, a few of the servants moving through, who tried to hide their grins, a few more of the guards, who fixedly looked away and pretended to see nothing. Suna, with just a quick flap, settled herself into Eris’ throne. Her father didn’t notice, just watching Eris with a vacant, adoring expression, and Suna settled herself happily into the cushion of the throne, ready to spread her wings and make her own fabulous speech.

The queen’s was clearly coming to her big conclusion, her final sweeping declaration. Just as she neared it, voice rising, arms spread, the room filled with golden light, Suna stretched out her wings and gave her strongest, loudest, most obnoxious honk.

Everything in the room froze. 

A few of the council members immediately looked frightened, some looked annoyed, some had simply turned red. The guild members were clearly trying not to laugh, as were the guards. The servants were not trying very hard now to stifle their laughter and smiles. Finally, Eris, back as stiff as stone, turned very slowly to look back at the throne.

Suna watched her with a smile--or as much smile as a swan could make.

Eris screamed and immediately threw a burst of magic directly toward the throne. Suna had anticipated--and hoped actually--that that would be the case, and she sprang into the air to avoid the blast, which kicked the throne backwards. But Eris wasn’t done, shrieking at the top of her voice about the infernal princess who refused to act like a princess, refused to accept her curse, would die now like the pathetic beast she was. Her words were garbled up with sounds that hardly seemed human, as well as the noise of the magic blasting from her fingers. She continued to throw it, ripping a hole through the tapestry behind the throne, shattering a chandelier as she aimed upward at the flying swan. Suna felt just a little fear now, that this had worked too well, that Eris really would kill her, or bring the whole castle down upon them all with her wild barrage.

Eris continued to scream, thrashing her hands wildly now, tossing guards backwards and knocking over chairs and shattering windows. The rest of the room finally reacted.

The council yelled about betrayal, a witch on the throne, the lost princess. The guild members bellowed about treachery and tricks and endangering their lives. The guards moved immediately toward Eris, weapons drawn. The servants cheered on the swan, yelling advice as the magic continued to fly around the room and break things. It was an explosion of noise, voices all fighting each other for supremacy, intermixed with the sound of magic and the clank of guard’s footfalls and objects breaking and tapestries falling and a swan honking and Eris’ unending shrieks of rage.

At last, the king blinked, moving as if waking from a very deep sleep. He shifted, shook his head, and finally actually looked at the wild mess of his throne room. He took in the sight of his wife, who he finally realized had rather viscous features, now contorted into a mask of horrible rage, and was still firing magic at random around the room. He took in his guards trying to restrain her and occasionally being blasted back by magic. He took in the guild members and council members starting to flee, took in the servants yelling for the swan. He at last took in the swan, still taking laps around the ceiling and honking and looking, inexplicably, like his daughter.

Where on earth _was_ his daughter? What was going on here? 

“Stop!” he bellowed out to the room, and everyone fell silent, even Eris. 

Actually, she looked at him with something like terror and then looked down at her hands, still crackling with magic. It was a moment enough for the guards to restrain her, pulling her arms behind her back so she could face the king. Her crown had fallen in her frenzy, and her eyes were bright and wide as she looked up at the king. 

The swan landed near a servant in the back of the room, tucking itself a little behind the young woman’s legs. In response, the young woman reached back and scooped the swan up into her arms, staying back near the door as she prepared to flee if needed.

“Someone,” the king said, voice echoing off the ceiling, “tell me just _exactly_ what is happening here?”

Everyone began talking at once, all trying to explain, Eris especially. Once more, the room was an avalanche of meaningless noise. The king made a sharp cutting gesture through the air and everyone fell silent once more. He looked around the room for one person to explain this all to him, immediately dismissing his witch queen and the council members and even the guards, eyes finally alighting on the servant holding the swan tucked against her chest. He made a quick gesture to bring her forward, and everyone’s eyes turned to look now at the servant with her armload of white swan. The girl nodded and walked up through the room, avoiding the fallen tapestries and chandeliers and the people still littered everywhere, avoiding especially the queen still being held by two guards. Once she was just in front of the dais, the king gestured for her to speak.

“Your majesty,” the girl said in a small, tremulous voice, “I believe you’ve been enchanted by a witch so she could be queen, and that she turned your daughter into this swan.” She gave a quick little curtsey. “Begging your pardon.”

The king blinked at her, and then looked at the swan.

“That,” the king asked slowly, “is my daughter?”

Now the swan looked him directly in the eyes and nodded vigorously, forcing the servant to shift her hands to keep hold of her.

The king looked at Eris, thoughts continuing to clear as he remembered the last few months as if looking at it all through tinted glass. He saw the queen making demands, ordering around the servants, telling him about all the things she’d do, taking some of the royal treasure out of the vault just to wear it as ornamentation. He’d sat there through it, nodding dully along like a simpleton, smiling at her all the while. His teeth ground together.

“You,” he commanded, “are no longer my queen. You will fix my daughter,” he continued with a sharp gesture to the swan, “and then you will spend the rest of your life in a cell to pay for your crimes.”

Eris’ face had transformed again, growing cruel and sharp. “Why would I possibly--”

The servant yelped as she found she was no longer holding a swan, but instead, a young woman that dropped to her feet on the floor. The whole room went quiet again, Eris included.

Suna rolled her shoulders for a moment, looked at her hands, cracked her neck either way, and then said, “Oh, that’s a much better way back than true love’s kiss or whatever.” She arched her back. “Not sure what did it, but I’ll take it.”

Eris gaped and stammered, and Suna met her eyes and raised her chin in a kind of challenge. Then the king was there, descending from the dais and wrapping Suna up in his arms, his eyes bright with tears. The room gave a sort of collective sigh.

It was all quite easy after that, what with Suna there to defend herself and explain what exactly had happened. Eris was taken to the dungeon, the council and guild members were dismissed, and the king continued to cling to his daughter as if afraid she’d turn back into a bird again at any moment. Suna, though, was simply glad to have hands and feet again. It did feel strange, being so large once more, and she worried a bit about having to act appropriately again. But for the moment, she simply took a deep breath and asked if someone could maybe draw her a bath and get her a change of clothes and something other than seeds and vegetables to eat.

“Although,” she added with a quick smile to the young servant, who returned it, “I do think I’ve acquired quite the taste for strawberries.”

*

In the dungeon, Eris stared at the dark stone wall wondering where exactly it had all gone wrong. Everything had worked out so well: the poisoning, the marriage, the crowning. It had been so simple, so straightforward, a transformation curse to rid herself of an annoying, stubborn, and in-the-way princess.

How could she have possibly imagined the princess could somehow be even more annoying, stubborn, and in-the-way as a swan?

Next time, if there was a next time, she’d go with the eternal sleep curse instead.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this silly little story! 
> 
> Feel free to comment, kudos, or chat with me on tumblr @onmyliteraturebullshitagain.


End file.
